The buildup to the first fight was mostly courteous. This time, heading into the June 17 rematch in Las Vegas, Kovalev is trying to psych out Ward by portraying the mild-mannered 33-year-old as a racist caricature who, in a faux text-message exchange, would type out “Oh my god n—a get off my d–k” and “hold this L f—-t cry baby,” only to send “Whats up Sergey.”

Kovalev deleted a tweet containing the nasty video, which was posted last Friday, shortly after noon on Tuesday, but it is preserved on YouTube (warning: explicit content).

“He could talk all he wants about ending my career,” Ward said last week, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, before this latest salvo. “It sounds good. I actually love it. It sells pay-per-views. When I was young, I used to take that stuff personal, but not anymore. He just better be ready to stand by what he said and back it up.”

Kovalev has a pattern of using race-baiting or outright racist tactics to promote a fight. In 2015, he tweeted (and deleted) a photo of him pointing to a child’s T-shirt with an image of a gorilla and wrote “Adonis looks great!!!” — a reference to fighter Adonis Stevenson, who is black. He was accused of being racist in the run-up to his fight with Jean Pascal, who also is black.

“I still think he’s going to try to get out of this fight somehow,” Kovalev said of Ward, via the Chronicle. “I want to destroy Andre Ward and finish his boxing career. He didn’t deserve the last victory, and I want to retire him.”